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Yahoo! has announced a couple of apps for Android and a new HTML5, iOS optimised site for iPhone and iPod touch owners.

The Android apps for Y! Messenger and Y! Mail will be available in the Android Market and will work with all devices running OS 2.0 and above. Users will be able to receive push notifications for new mails; will be able to access contacts both from their Yahoo! account as well as those stored on their device; search mails by subject, sender’s name and even upload images stored on the phone as mail attachments. Users will be able to send and receive pictures even from the IM app for Android. In addition to this, Yahoo! has also released a search widget for Android phones.

For iPhone and iPod touch users, Yahoo! has released an HTML5 web app for mail. Users will get desktop like experience in terms of speed and features and will be able to access their mails even when they are offline and carry out local searches thanks to on-device local caching. The web app will also display HTML messages along with images or videos that come as attachments. The web app can be now previewed by going to m.yahoo.com/mail from Safari browser on your iPhone or iPod touch and selecting ‘Preview the new Yahoo! Mail’ link.

As expected, Google today announced the next version of Android – OS 2.2 – aka Froyo. The new OS brings forth five major improvements and some cool surprises in tow. So without much adieu, here’s what Froyo brings to the table.

It’s faster: Froyo now comes with a new Dalvik Just In Time Compiler or JIT that will offer two to five times performance improvement compared to Eclair or Android 2.1. For laymen, it’s simply faster when you use any application or game.

New home screen: Froyo also comes with a new home screen that has a tips widgets for new users to familiarise them with the platform. This is a thoughtful addition considering that we have seen many new users scratching their heads trying to figure out how to do even the simplests of tasks. Also new on the homescreen is a new quick launcher on the bottom to access the phone, app launcher or browser. This quick launcher will be accessible on all five home screens. Nothing ground breaking over here, yet very thoughtful additions.

Improved Exchange support: Yeah, we can see many of you suited-booted kinds getting excited now. Well, Froyo brings better Exchange support with the ability to sync calendars, global address lists while sending e-mails, remote wipe and in general, improved security with regards to passwords. It will also automatically discover your acounts settings and you only need to know your user name and password. (This last feature is available for Exchange 2007 and higher.)

Camera and Gallery: The camera has a new UI for onscreen buttons for controling zoom, flash, white balance, geo-tagging, focus and exposure. Camcorder also provides an easy way to set video size/quality for MMS and YouTube. Now, LED flash has been enabled for video recording.

Portable Hotspot: Yup, you can now tether your phone to a PC or convert the phone’s data service into a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Improved browser performance: The Froyo browser is two-three times faster than the Eclair (Android 2.1 browser). In fact, Google is calling it the fastest mobile browser in the world and demonstrated how fast it is compared to the Apple iPad.

The browser will also support HTML5 and comes with support for orientation, speech and camera. So if you are on Google Maps on the browser, you would be able to navigate by changing the orientation of the phone. With speech support you’d be able to search Google by voice directly from the browser and with camera, click pictures and update them on buzz without ever leaving the camera. This would work with other web apps that use HTML5 standards. Google is betting big on webapps, and think that with HTML5, they will be bigger than native apps. Perhaps, they forgot to tell that to Apple.

Improved app management: You will be able to move apps to SD card without any noticable performance lag. What’s more, you can even set certain apps to auto-update on their own and the rest you can update all at one go. Searching for apps has been simplified with a home screen search widget, which is very similar to how Apple does on the iPhone. Also, app developers will be able to retain user’s data stored on apps when users change their device.

Bluetooth improvements: Lot of people have complained about Bluetooth performance on Android devices. Well, Froyo will enable voice dialling over Bluetooth, transferring contacts over Bluetooth and better support with Bluetooth accessories.